"Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
-- George Orwell, Politics and the English Language

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Sunday, January 01, 2017

Smug Alert

Anthony Bourdain has a decent point here:

"When people are afraid and feel that their government has failed them they do things that seem completely mad and unreasonable to those of who are perhaps under less pressure," Bourdain said.

Still, Bourdain said he was empathetic to the circumstances that led to outcomes in those countries. And he faulted those same forces for Trump's win in November.

"The utter contempt with which privileged Eastern liberals such as myself discuss red-state, gun-country, working-class America as ridiculous and morons and rubes is largely responsible for the upswell of rage and contempt and desire to pull down the temple that we're seeing now," Bourdain told Reason.

"I've spent a lot of time in gun-country, God-fearing America," he added. "There are a hell of a lot of nice people out there, who are doing what everyone else in this world is trying to do: the best they can to get by, and take care of themselves and the people they love. When we deny them their basic humanity and legitimacy of their views, however different they may be than ours, when we mock them at every turn, and treat them with contempt, we do no one any good."

....but undermines it with his own recent stances on Clownstick, and therefore by association, his supporters:

Bourdain did not specify in the interview whether he might be interested in breaking bread with Trump, a notion he shot down in a September conversation with the Wrap. At the time, Bourdain was asked whether he might consider a private dining session with Trump if he should be elected president.

"Absolutely f--ing not," Bourdain told the Wrap. "We know him well here [in New York]. . . I would give the same answer that I would have given 10 years ago, when he was just as loathsome."

....

Bourdain has made no reservations about his disdain for Trump - or for those who choose to do business with him.

In a recent interview with Eater, Bourdain said he had "utter and complete contempt" for restaurateur Alessandro Borgognone, who announced in November he would open a sushi restaurant at Trump's hotel in Washington.

"I will never eat in his restaurant," Bourdain declared in that interview.

Someone needs to explain why it is that only "liberals" and "the left" can be "smug" and "contemptuous" and "in a bubble." There seems to be a lifetime supply of anger, vitriol, and certitude on both sides, each with their own respective media outlets. There is always some ratio of facts to emotions. Ultimately it comes down to which group tends to muster the strongest ratio, utilizing the most (and most factual) facts, as objectively as possible.

I fail to see how a reasonably objective observer can look back at the facts, and look back at what people in each group were quoted as saying and thinking and believing, again and again, and not see a huge difference, to put it mildly. These patterns and differences were quite consistent; the Clownstick supporters were incoherent in explaining their logic to a level that must be deliberate. They chose to believe lies about Hillary Clinton, just as they chose not to believe the truth about Fuckface Von Clownstick.

This is nothing new; this is how these people have always operated. They wore purple band-aids to mock a decorated veteran to show their support for two draft dodgers in 2004. This year they pushed lies and nonsense about Benghazi and emails and Obamacare. When facts and logic are literally meaningless, everything within reach is simply a vehicle for your anger. People keep acting like this is some new phenomenon, driven this time by "economic anxiety" or some such. They have always been like this. They are always going to be like this.

Does anyone out there on either side of the debate seriously believe that, had a hundred thousand rust belt morlocks voted for her and got her across the finish line, that there would be some "voice of reason" on that side of the aisle going, You know, maybe since we lost, we need to get over our self-righteous smugness and reach out to these folks and learn to talk with them? Fucking seriously? They got the fuck blown out of them in 2008, and by March 2009, six weeks after Obama's inauguration, had declared full-throated war. And they made good on that promise.

We all have to figure out how to live with each other, Bourdain is right on that count. But none of us who see this fucking clown for the clear and present danger that he is owe anyone anything. There was always the outside hope that Clownstick might possibly govern in a less antagonistic fashion than he campaigned, but the opposite is proving to be true. He's going to do to this country what Putin has done to Russia -- plunder the economy for himself and his cronies, punish his opponents in government and media, and use racists and nationalists as a sort of volunteer enforcement arm.

And Bourdain knows it. That's why he's so strident about being unwilling to "break bread" with Clownstick personally, why he pre-emptively refuses to visit the restaurant in Clownstick's hotel. It's all of a piece, you can't have it both ways. If you can't explain to these incoherent retards why you're boycotting their hero's bidness enterprises, then there is probably not a lot of common ground to be found.

Theirs is the logic of the rioter, and some of us are just boarding up our small businesses and homes, and just hoping to make it through the long dark night, knowing that there's nothing we can say to them. Seriously, I'd give money to hear exactly what Anthony Bourdain would say to someone who thinks Barack Obama shares some of the blame for 9/11, to find some mythical common ground.

Given all the deep-seated problems facing this nation and the world, and our collective refusal to do much about any of them (heaven forfend the one-percenters experience even a tiny blip in their fucking endless greed), the only sensible thing to say to your average Clownstick supporter is, ironically, the same thing to have said to Clinton supporters had she won: Be careful what you wish for.